It’s June, so your attention is likely to be directed towards the peak summer season. We thought it might be useful to have a look back at our statistics for summer bookings (any bookings with a start date between 1 July and 31 August) over the past couple of years to see if there are any interesting trends to watch out for.
For the purposes of comparison, we have only included bookings for properties that have been with SuperControl in 2013, 2014 and 2015, and bookings placed up to and including 13 May each year.
Late bookers favour short breaks
Stays of 7 nights have been perennially popular, accounting for 61%, 62% and 60% of summer bookings placed in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively. Short breaks of 1-6 nights were also popular, and made up 25% of bookings in 2013 and 2014, and 28% of bookings in 2015.
However, if we were to include the bookings taken after 13 May in 2013 and 2014 and look at the total summer bookings for each year, a different picture emerges. The proportion of total summer bookings that were for 7-night stays in 2013 was just 50% – and 51% in 2014. Meanwhile, the proportion of total bookings for stays of 1-6 nights was 39% each year.
This suggests that last-minute summer bookers favour shorter stays.
How can you turn this to your advantage in 2015?
The trend of booking accommodation at the last minute is well established, as is guests’ propensity for booking short breaks. Neither of these trends are likely to change any time soon. Naturally, you want guests to book a 7 or 14 night stay but if your summer dates are not working out so smoothly it pays to alter to a fully flexible approach to late bookings and optimise your last-minute availability.
In your Price planner in your SuperControl account, you are able to load your prices for shorter stays, so you can ensure that every booking (and any length of stay) is profitable.
Being fully flexible will boost your ranking and give you more visibility on the likes of Booking.com too, which will hopefully equate to even more bookings.
Bookings rush
Staying with the last-minute theme, if we look at the summer bookings placed in 2013 and 2014, the highest proportion of bookings placed each year were in June and July. So, if 2015 is going to see the same trend, we hope you’re about to get very busy with new bookings and enquiries.
Staycations increasingly popular
The proportion of staycations booked at properties in the UK and Ireland has steadily risen over the past three years, from 87.8% in 2013 to 89.2% in 2015.
This is in slight contrast to VisitEngland’s latest Staycation Monitor report, which found that there had been a small shift towards longer trips abroad, at the expense of long trips in England only (the England short break market remains the same).
Of the remaining UK and Ireland bookings, more stays were booked by guests from Germany than anywhere else. The next most bookings came from the US, and then the Netherlands. This pattern has been repeated in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Guests
Oddly enough (considering it’s prime school holiday time), a decreasing number of summer bookings are coming from parties that include children and/or infants (50.8% of bookings in 2013, 50.3% of bookings in 2014 and 48.1% of bookings in 2015). However, this change is only marginal and could obviously still increase, for this year at least.
